Born in Glasgow, David McVicar studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (current Royal Conservatoire of Scotland). He was created a Knight Bachelor in 2012 for services to opera and Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. His work took him mostly in Europe, for productions such as Sémélé at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, Der Ring des Nibelungen and Così fan tutte at Opéra national du Rhin, La Traviata at Gran Teatro del Liceu in Barcelona, La clemenza di Tito at the Aix-En-Provence Festival, La Calisto and I Masnadieri at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Carmen at Royal Danish Opera, The Tales of Hoffmann at Salzburg Festival.
His productions have been revived throughout the United-Kingdom, including Le Nozze di Figaro, Salomé, Adriana Lecouvreur, Aida, Les Troyens and Death in Venice at Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Der Rosenkavalier, The Turn of the Screw and Medea at English National Opera, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Il Seraglio at the Glyndebourne Festival and, for the Scottish Opera, Falstaff, Pelléas et Mélisande, The Rake's Progress, Così fan tutte, La Traviata, Madama Butterfly, Der Rosenkavalier and Idoménée. In the United-States, he conducted many productions at Metropolitan Opera New York, including Fedora, Medea, Don Carlo (also at Lyric Opera Chicago), Agrippina, Adriana Lecouvreur, Anna Bolena, Il Trovatore, Maria Stuarda, Giulio Cesare, Cavalleria rusticana and Paillasse, Roberto Devereux, Tosca and Norma.
He also staged Wozzeck, Elektra, Rusalka and Macbeth at Lyric Opera Chicago, Andrea Chénier at San Francisco Opera, Rusalka and Medea at Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, Don Giovanni, Le Nozze di Figaro and Faust at Opera Australia, and he created and directed Falstaff for Santa Fe Opera.
